- Portugal: Regime Detains 15 Cops as Lisbon Police Torture Probe Widens
Source: US News & World Report
“Portuguese law enforcement officials investigating cases of alleged torture at two central Lisbon precincts detained 15 police officers on Tuesday, raising the total number of those charged or arrested to 25, police and prosecutors said. In January, prosecutors charged two officers with torturing vagrants and migrants and then sharing images of their acts in an online chat with dozens of other officers, triggering a broader inquiry. The two are awaiting trial, accused of torture, acts of cruelty and abuse of power, according to the indictment. One also faces charges of rape, robbery and forgery. Another seven people were detained in March. Police confirmed Tuesday’s detentions that also included one civilian but would not say whether those held were suspected of carrying out torture themselves or of failing to report abuse they had witnessed in person or in shared videos.” (05/05/26)
- Israel: Court extends caging of activists abduced by pirates
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“An Israeli court on Tuesday extended the [caging] of two foreign activists [abducted] from a Gaza-bound flotilla by six days, a lawyer representing them said. Spanish national Saif Abu Keshek and Brazilian Thiago Avila appeared before a court in the southern city of Ashkelon for their second hearing, after being brought to Israel for questioning last week. … The two, held in a prison in Ashkelon, were among dozens of activists aboard a Gaza-bound flotilla intercepted by Israeli forces in international waters off the coast of Greece early on Thursday. The other [abducted] activists were taken to the Greek island of Crete and released.” (05/05/26)
- NY: Radical students harass Cornell president after Israel debate clash
Source: New York Post
“Cornell University’s president has blasted a group of radical students for hurling abuse and holding him hostage in his own car following an Israel-Palestine debate series at the Ivy League school. The group of rabble-rousers filmed themselves swarming Michael Kotlikoff and trailing him to his vehicle as he was trying to leave the event at the Ithaca, New York, campus last Thursday. Kotlikoff accused the group — who he said have become notorious for spewing verbal and online abuse toward Cornell staffers in the past – of surrounding his car, banging on the windows and blocking him from leaving. The school prez spoke out after the students posted footage on social media of Kotlikoff apparently backing into the group amid the parking lot chaos.” (05/05/26)
- Microsoft, Google, xAI give US regime access to AI models for security testing
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Tech giants Microsoft, Google and xAI say they will allow the United States federal government access to their new artificial intelligence models for national security testing. The Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) at the Department of Commerce announced the agreement on Tuesday amid increasing concerns about the capabilities that Anthropic’s newly unveiled Mythos model could give hackers. Under the new agreement, the US government will be allowed to evaluate the models before deployment and conduct research to assess their capabilities and security risks.” (05/05/26)
- France: Political row over calls for overhaul and €1bn cuts at public broadcaster
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“France’s public sector broadcasters have been lambasted by a parliamentary committee of enquiry, which recommends closing several channels and cutting their budget by a total of €1bn (£863m). The committee, which held six months of at times acrimonious hearings, levelled charges of left-wing bias at state-owned France Télévisions and Radio France, as well as gross financial waste. But the findings were immediately dismissed as politically-motivated and impractical by industry insiders, who said that the committee’s rapporteur, Charles Alloncle, has a far-right agenda to prepare state TV and radio for privatisation. Criticism has also come from the prime minister and the head of the committee. Alloncle, 32, is an MP for the small Union of the Right for the Republic (UDR) party, an ally of Marine Le Pen’s populist-right National Rally (RN).” (05/05/26)
- Congress Gave Away Its Authority To Declare War and Enabled Trump’s Iran War
Source: Reason
by Fiona Harrigan“Congress hasn’t voted to declare war since 1942, yet the legislative branch constantly refuses to rein in presidents.” (05/05/26)
https://reason.com/2026/05/05/congress-and-the-executive-enabled-illegal-war-in-iran/
- US Debt Crosses 100% of GDP for First Time Since 1946 — And This Time Is Different
Source: The Daily Economy
by Romina Boccia“US public debt has reached 100 percent of GDP (gross domestic product) for the first time since the aftermath of World War II. Just because we have been here before, and we managed, doesn’t mean we will do so again. This time is different in important ways that are underappreciated by both policymakers and the public. In 1946, the United States emerged from a global war with high debt, but also with a young population, strong growth prospects, and a political commitment to fiscal restraint. Today, America faces the opposite: an aging population, structurally rising entitlement spending, and persistent deficits with no credible plan to rein them in.” (05/05/26)
- AI Regulation: More of the Risk, Less of the Benefit
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp“‘Whatever can happen,’ Augustes De Morgan wrote in 1866, ‘will happen if we make trials enough.’ To which I must add, if ‘we’ don’t make trials enough, someone else will. AI will inevitably be pushed to whatever, if any, limit it has. If American researchers can’t legally do it, Chinese researchers will do it. If Chinese researchers can’t legally do it, Swiss researchers will do it. If every government on the planet imposes pesky regulations on doing it, people who don’t care about pesky government regulations will do it. … Those of us who are allowed to avail ourselves of the most advanced AI possible will disproportionately reap whatever rewards it produces. Those of us for whom maximal AI is forbidden fruit will be more vulnerable to AI’s dark sides.” (05/05/26)
- Against a New Cold War
Source: Liberal Currents
by Craig Johnson“Contrary to what your high school textbook and film franchises like ‘Rambo’ and ‘Red Dawn’ taught you, the Cold War was not primarily a conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. That’s what the US teaches because it frames the war as something the US won — the Soviets are gone, after all — and because it relegates most of the actual violence of the war to the status of sideshow or backdrop to the “real” story of the war, the superpower rivalry. This version of the Cold War is real and lethal, but limited to proxy wars conducted in places white people don’t live, with the occasional spy thriller thrown in to mix things up. … Rather than a hypothetical conflict that occasionally got heated, The Cold War was a series of extremely violent and very real wars in which millions of people all over the world died.” (05/05/26)
- Trump’s Crusade Against the Holy See
Source: Exiled Policy
by Nick Gambill“Leo XIV, in the role of Pontiff, does not act as a political figure. The Pope has no elections to run. His job is to safeguard doctrine, maintain the unity of the Church, and serve as a spiritual authority. This makes the President’s attack against the Pope unusually preposterous.” (05/05/26)
https://exiledpolicy.substack.com/p/trumps-crusade-against-the-holy-see
- California voters fed up with Democrats may turn to Steve Hilton for change
Source: Fox News Forum
by Liz Peek“In 2016, then-presidential candidate Trump famously asked Black voters ‘What do you have to lose?’ Trump challenged African American voters to rethink their long-standing allegiance to the Democrat Party, which, he rightly claimed, took them for granted and had failed to deliver on the most pressing demands of African American families, including providing their kids with a good education. Steve Hilton, a Republican and former Fox News host, running to become governor of deep blue California, should be posing that same question to Golden State voters. California is one of the most expensive places to live in the country, entirely because of decisions made by Democrats who have controlled the state with a two-thirds supermajority in the legislature since 2018 and also occupied the governor’s mansion since 2011.” [editor’s note: It was one of the most expensive states to live in LONG before 2011 – TLK] (05/05/26)
- Mexico seeks to clean house, its way
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff“As reported in the Monitor last week, the recent U.S. indictment of 10 Mexican officials poses a key test for President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo: how best to balance pressures from its neighbor and largest trading partner with the domestic imperative to defend sovereignty – while also tackling cartel crime and serving justice for ordinary Mexicans? More broadly, this development also tests both countries’ determination to collaboratively pursue legitimate shared interests in a way that stabilizes rather than further disrupts already-shaky economic, political, and security relations. Last Thursday, President Sheinbaum said the U.S. request for extradition of the 10 officials did not provide enough evidence for arrests. Instead, she said, Mexican prosecutors would investigate the cases to determine evidence of criminality. Her declaration came in the wake of increasing unease after a roadway incident in late April pointed to CIA involvement inside Mexico.” (05/04/26)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Editorials/the-monitors-view/2026/0504/Mexico-seeks-to-clean-house-its-way
- In Russia, Victory Day Is Starting to Feel Like Defeat
Source: The Bulwark
by Cathy Young“Last week, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that the Victory Day parade in Moscow’s Red Square, which for decades has served as a symbol of Russian military power, will be drastically scaled back. Tanks and other military hardware will not be rolling across Red Square; there will be only a column of soldiers and military academy students marching on foot. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov made no secret of the fact that the reason for this decision was the ‘terrorist threat’ from Ukraine — that is, the fear of drone strikes. … Elena Malakhovskaya, a host on the Khodorkovsky Live webcast, summed up the situation another way: ‘In the fifth year of the war, it’s Zelensky who decides whether Putin can appear at the parade on Red Square.'” (05/05/26)
- The Empire Can No Longer Hide Its Ugly Nature
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone“As the US ramps up its aggressions against Iran and Cuba under the supervision of psychopathic empire managers like Rubio, more and more eyes are opening to the depraved nature of the imperial power structure. It used to be challenging to help westerners recognize the truth that we are ruled by monsters and everything we learned in school about our nation and our world is a lie. Now it’s just becoming the mainstream normie understanding as people see more and more evidence of the empire’s savagery all around them. There’s only so many atrocities you can witness on your social media feed before reality begins to dawn and free your mind from the propaganda-induced trance it was groomed into. The empire couldn’t hide its ugly face forever.” (05/05/26)
- The Enemy of My Enemy Is a Really Big Dragon
Source: Liberalism.org
by Sarah Skwire“I read some really great political theory this week. And unlike Plato’s Republic or Aristotle’s Politics, this book had a dragon. Joe Hill’s most recent novel, King Sorrow, takes its main characters and its readers on a scary and suspenseful exploration of the dubious wisdom of the claim that ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ That old political saw gets hauled out from the back corner of the basement whenever it seems expedient to make a morally dubious alliance with a stronger power. Hill’s novel, a deliciously gory and smart bit of horror in its own right, exposes the ethical void at the center of such alliances.” (05/05/26)
https://www.liberalism.org/p/the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-a-really-big-dragon
- Iranian-Americans (aside from a few gun-running social media mavens) want regime gone
Source: New York Post
by Joel Kotkin“The Trump administration has been cracking down on a handful of Iranian residents who have ties to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and have even allegedly been involved in gun-running while living lavish lifestyles in LA. That may leave the impression that this community might not support attempts to overthrow the Islamic Republic. Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, California’s Persian community is overwhelmingly opposed to the regime. A survey done recently by the Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans found that barely 3% of Iranian-Americans favor the current regime, while an additional 8% would welcome a reformed Islamic Republic.” (05/04/26)
https://nypost.com/2026/05/04/opinion/iranian-americans-want-irgc-gone/
- How the waste in healthcare drives the US debt
Source: Los Angeles Times
by James Weinstein“Washington treats healthcare spending like a moral obligation and interest payments like an accounting nuisance. They’re linked: Federal spending that is wasted in the healthcare system forces higher taxes or more borrowing, leaving less money for Medicare, defense or anything else. To slow deficit spending and the ballooning costs of the national debt, policymakers should start by eliminating a large preventable expense: waste in U.S. healthcare.” (05/05/26)
- Demographics, not the Supreme Court, are killing racial gerrymandering
Source: The Hill
by Merrill Matthews“There’s been no shortage of expressed outrage from the left in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which significantly limits states’ efforts at racial gerrymandering. A Salon headline captures the progressive indignation: ‘Supreme Court guts the Voting Rights Act in ‘Jim Crow 2.0 ruling.’’ The left can never be accused of understatement. But the change needed to happen because U.S. demographics are making racial gerrymandering increasingly difficult. And that’s a good thing.” (05/05/26)
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/5862711-voting-rights-act-challenges/
- The Fertility Panic Is a Racist, Sexist Tool to Push More Austerity
Source: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
by Julie Hollar“If you haven’t heard the argument that civilization is about to collapse because women aren’t having enough babies, you haven’t been consuming much media. ‘The Birth-Rate Crisis Isn’t as Bad as You’ve Heard — It’s Worse,’ announced The Atlantic (6/30/25). Business Insider (8/21/25) ran a piece titled ‘America’s Great People Shortage,’ which opened, ‘America is about to tumble off the edge of a massive demographic cliff.’ And NPR’s Brian Mann warned on PBS (4/10/26) that, as a result of the birth rate decline, ‘many people say’ that the US soon ‘will be unrecognizable.’ It’s repeatedly in the news in part because it’s a priority of the ‘pronatalist’ right, which has prominent backers in the Trump administration.” (05/05/26)
https://fair.org/home/the-regressive-ideologies-behind-the-baby-bust-panic/
- Synformation: Epistemic Capture Meets AI
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Robert Malone“In my role as Co-chairperson and member of the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, I have been participating in a training course regarding the GRADE methodology for public health decision-making. The acronym stands for Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation, and this methodology is intended to provide a structured, transparent framework to evaluate the quality (certainty) of evidence and the strength of recommendations derived from that evidence. … The GRADE approach assumes that, in the case of peer-reviewed clinical and epidemiological data (otherwise referred to as ‘evidence-based medicine’), individual studies will reflect various forms of bias (structural, intentional, or unintended), but when systematically analyzed as a collection of information, these biases will either cancel each other out or (if bias is detected) can be statistically compensated for. What could possibly go wrong? Clearly, something did.” (05/05/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/synformation-epistemic-capture-meets-ai/
- Apple’s New CEO Has a Major Opportunity to Ditch Politics
Source: The Daily Economy
by Isaac Willour“Companies whose products and ideas change the world for the better don’t need to chase activists’ applause.” (05/05/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/apples-new-ceo-has-a-major-opportunity-to-ditch-politics/
- Trump Watch, 05/05/26
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
“Trump’s Iranian Tar Baby.” (05/05/26)
- Ron Paul Liberty Report, 05/05/26
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“Hegseth Claims We’re In A Different War With Iran.” (05/05/26)
- Daniel Davis on The Scott Horton Show
Source: The Scott Horton Show
“Daniel Davis on What’s Been Happening in Ukraine.” (05/05/26)
https://scotthorton.org/interviews/4-30-26-daniel-davis-on-whats-been-happening-in-ukraine/
- The Good Fight, 05/05/26
Source: Yascha Mounk
“Laurenz Guenther on the Representation Gap in Politics.” (05/05/26)
- Capital Record, episode 297
Source: National Review
“Two Bankruptcies for the Price of One?” (05/05/26)
https://www.nationalreview.com/podcasts/capital-record/two-bankruptcies-for-the-price-of-one/
- Rising, 05/05/26
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave gives his radar on a report from The Daily Wire that alleges widespread welfare fraud in Ohio.” (05/05/26)